The Department of Homeland Security is trying very hard to live up to
their German antecedents. Too bad they suck at it.

I spent most of Christmas Eve day having violent blue thoughts of the
government drones who operate our nation's passenger rail system.
Thanks to a power failure (AMTRAK) and the attitude of a regional rail
service (MTA/MARC) that decided no one needed the late train on
Christmas Eve, I had to abort my planned long-weekend visit with the
woman I've partnered for 15 years.

Late Christmas day I learned those people are geniuses compared to TSA and DHS.

We start with a Nigerian jihadist who decided that blowing up an
airplane over Detroit would be a good idea. Good for Detroit,
perhaps, not so good for the other 230+ passengers, some of whom
overwhelmed the not-so-smart-bomb and foiled the plan. Fortunately,
none of those passengers were arrested for impersonating Federal Air
Marshals. Later, it was learned that all the anti-terrorism security
apparatchiks who harass and infiltrate political dissidents, steal
water bottles and penknives, arrest photographers, detain political
workers for carrying cash donations, and otherwise act like East
German Secret Police in a Film Noir nonetheless failed utterly to
prevent the Underwear Bomber from entering US airspace despite being
warned of him over three months ago by his own father.

The rational response to this event, after taking Jerry Jihad into
custody, should have been "Is that the best you can do?" while making
the "L" shape on our collective foreheads. The actual response
resembled a school girl on a kitchen chair lifting her skirts and
squealing while a mouse scurries around her. I refer, of course, to
TSA Security Directive SD-1544-09-06, which among other things chained
passengers to their seats in the last hour of flight, without so much
as a magazine allowed in their laps, no airphones, no electronic
devices, no in-flight entertainment, and definitely no pointing out of
landmarks to the passengers by the flight crew. So after proving that
current rules and procedures were completely worthless, the response
is to enact even more worthless procedures, encouraging foreign
tourists to go somewhere else.

Spurred on by this level of government hysteria, the next day another
Nigerian, suffering from food poisoning, was arrested off the same
flight for spending too long in the aircraft restroom, while two other
passengers were arrested off of a flight in Phoenix for being brown
and speaking to each other in a foreign language. Welcome to Amerika,
land of the fee and the home of the slave. No wonder people are
planning travel itineraries to completely avoid the United States.

But just like Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter books, Homeland
Security has to be seen doing something to keep all the bleating sheep
safe. Since they can't find Osama Yo Mama, and can't keep religious
fanatics off airplanes, what can they do? Go after soft targets like
bloggers Steven Frischling, Chris Elliott, and Ghod knows how many
others. Steve and Chris received the dreaded knocks on the door and
demands to turn over information on how they received the "secret"
security directive mentioned earlier:

Frischling, a freelance travel writer and photographer in Connecticut
who writes a blog for the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, said the two
agents who visited him arrived around 7 p.m. Tuesday, were armed and
threatened him with a criminal search warrant if he didn't provide the
name of his source. They also threatened to get him fired from his KLM
job and indicated they could get him designated a security risk, which
would make it difficult for him to travel and do his job.

"They were indicating there would be significant ramifications if I
didn't cooperate," said Frischling, who was home alone with his three
children when the agents arrived. "It's not hard to intimidate someone
when they're holding a 3-year-old [child] in their hands. My wife
works at night. I go to jail, and my kids are here with nobody."

Was this really necessary? How about those Special-Ed Agents who
not only had to go to WalMart to buy a hard drive to copy files but
then couldn't get it to work? And only people who live under rocks
and in caves (and Special-Ed Agents) don't know that "ICE" in your
cell phone address book means "In Case of Emergency" and not some
special code to flag your "source".

As of 8PM EST New Year's Eve, Frischling announced via FlyerTalk that
TSA's Deputy Chief Counsel for Enforcement had called him and stated
the actions against both bloggers had been dropped. All well and good,
but the question remains why the heavy-handed Gestapo boots on the
neck in the first place? It smacks of intimidation, and what the Supreme
Court has called a violation of a fundamental civil right. I would hope this
issue is pursued in the coming year.

Then there's Jackboot Janet Deux, a woman who didn't have the ovaries to
reign in the worst sheriff in the world while she was governor,
telling everyone that "the system worked." Really? The only part I saw
working was the Title 10 Section 311 unincorporated militia, which acted to
keep the whackjob from blowing up their aircraft. If this is a TSA/DHS
success, Ghod Help Us All when the "spectacular failure" happens.

Finally, you would have thought TSA would have learned their lesson the
first time around, but yet another "secret" document has surfaced on the
internet with faulty PDF redaction. One very good thing about it is that once
again questions are being asked as to the validity of those redactions. In
my opinion, a more valid question to the TSA at large would be "Did yo
mama drop you on yer head when you wuz a baby?"

This is the face of Homeland Security (which sounds better in the
Original German). Osama Bin Laden is pissing his pants laughing. Where
else can you send a few thousand dollars and a patsy and cause an entire
government department to collectively spin their heads like a bad horror movie?

Is it any wonder that the actions of the collective world governments in the
recent movie "2012"
are completely believable?